


dark is the water

by Thighz



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Dreams and Nightmares, Explicit Sexual Content, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jack is fucked up, M/M, Masturbation, Murder, Neon Noir AU, Neonwatch AU, Pain Kink, messy masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27216688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thighz/pseuds/Thighz
Summary: The city sings outside the confining walls, reminding him that while he has time, there is no infinite supply of it. A rising sun means exposure and exposure won’t get him any closer to ripping the organization out by the roots.A short taste of Jack's struggle to find answers in a city that refuses to give up its secrets.(A slice from Petitecreme's 'Neon Noir AU'.)
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54





	dark is the water

**Author's Note:**

> Gem waited oh so patiently with me for this fic and I am absolutely thrilled she asked me to be a part of her wonderfully dark AU.
> 
> You can find the Neon Noir comics and artwork in chronological order [here](https://petitecreme.tumblr.com/neon)!
> 
> _Enjoy_

**dark is the water**

_ Dead men are heavier than broken hearts _ _   
_ _ \- Raymond Chandler _

  
  
  


Gear oil smells sour and sharp, hanging so thick in the air Jack can nearly taste it on his tongue. He can taste it around the butt of the cigarette between his lips. Even with smoke filling his lungs and his nostrils and tingling along his taste buds like the disease it is, he can still smell the oil. It mixes in the air with the blood on his knuckles, scraped raw by the sharp metal cheekbones glinting under flickering fluorescent bulbs.

The light swings back and forth above his prisoner, casting just enough light to spread haunting shadows across the stern, aristocratic features Jack dented like cheap aluminum foil. The wheezing vocal cords spark and flicker in the low light, but it’s not a wheeze of defeat.

It’s laughter.

Low and taunting and grating along Jack’s already frazzled nerves.

He blows out a burst of smoke and watches it unfurl into the air.

“What do you hope to gain from this?”

Jack takes great pleasure in knowing the hitchy, garbled speech is the result of his fist to a throat.

“Who says I want information?” Jack flicks out a harsh, red burst of ash, “Maybe I already have what I need and you’re just a box I need to check off my list.”

A long pause ensues as the light swings to and fro, revealing a furrowing brow on a once perfect face.

“Killing me won’t save a single soul on those streets.” A sardonic laugh, “They take the drugs because they  _ want _ the high. You know this.” A sneer as the light flares, “You’ve-.”

Jack pushes away from the wall, his stride steady and sure as he approaches the omnic tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He twists the cigarette between his fore and middle finger, back and forth, before stubbing it out between the frayed wires on the omnics neck.

The omnic hisses with a sharp snarl; chair jolting as his body struggles against the sensation.

Jack smirks, “You talk a confident game for a man strapped to a chair, Maximilien.” He releases the butt and leaves it wedged between two wires, “Besides, I’m not going to kill you - yet.”

“Extended torture. That’s original.” Maximilien sneers, “And predictable.”

“I’m a creature of habit.” Jack shrugs carelessly.

He walks the room in a slow sweep, peering through the door twice and tapping the light hanging from the ceiling once. Just to see Max twitch as he hovers.

The city sings outside the confining walls, reminding him that while he has time, there is no infinite supply of it. A rising sun means exposure and exposure won’t get him any closer to ripping the organization out by the roots.

Roots that are woven so intricately through the poisoned underbelly of this city, that Jack’s not confident he’ll ever truly be rid of it. But he doesn’t let Maximilien see that uncertainty. He never lets anyone see it, not even Ana, who looks at him across dark rooms and wonders if today is the day he’ll finally lose his marbles. Is today the day he’ll go mad? With revenge? With grief? With the visions of a smile just out the corner of his eyes?

She watches and she waits for him to drink a little too much. Take on one too many enemies. Take the wrong junkie to bed.

Jack should feel ashamed.

He’s too numb for that now.

He only feels the throb of his knuckles from wrestling Max to the wall and to the ground; slamming a fist into his cheek until one eye was completely hidden by scrunched metal. Until his fingertips burned from wrapping around a throat vibrating with mad laughter until it sparked and hissed a scathing melody.

No, he’s not here to kill Maximilian, though his muscles bunch and heat with the thought. Of how easy it would be to finish it. How close he is to the end.

Or the beginning of a series of endings that are a direct result of his tenacity.

Will there ever truly be an end to it all? Or will he be six feet under and simply absorbed by the poison drenched soil?

“I know who you are.”

Jack lifts a brow and turns to Max, “I’d like to think with all of your rich bitch connections, that most of Talon knows who I really am.” He pats at his jacket, searching for his pack of cigs. The box is smooshed along the inside of his left pocket, but when he flips open the lid, it’s empty.

Typical.

He tosses it to the ground and it crinkles under his boot.

Max hums thoughtfully, “There was a file involved. Though, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy informing Ogundimu that you did not in fact die from being shoved off the top of a building like the Reaper informed us.”

“I’m hard to kill.” Jack grunts.

“Clearly.”

“You should hire better assassins.” Jack suggests, “The ones you pay are sloppy.”

Maximilien’s laughter is cracked and staticy, “I do not employ them.” His head lolls to the side, metal catching in the lamplight, “Nor do I command the masses spread throughout the city.” Jack watches his hands flex under the restraints, finger tips wiggling like a taunt in Jack’s direction, “I am but one of many talons attached to the palm of Ogundimu’s hand, Jack Morrision.” He leans forward, gear oil leaking slick from his ruined eye socket and oozing from his neck, “You will never get us all.” It drips onto the rumpled tuxedo pants he’d worn to Talon’s elaborate ball, “Everything you’ve done. Everything you’ve discovered. Every _ one _ you’ve  _ lost _ -.”

Anger festers like a boil under Jack’s skin. He feels his face twist into a snarl, hand snapping out and fingers gathering the remaining wires at the base of Maximilian’s neck. He rips them out with a shout, sending the omnic’s head back with the force of it.

Jack gets no real reprieve as crackling, horrific laughter fills the room, even as the wires hang limp from Jack’s fist. He throws them to the ground with a growl.

From there, all hell breaks loose.

Right on schedule.

Jack leaps back as the door blows inward, throwing it across the room and into the back of Maximilien’s chair. He’s thrown forward, skull meeting ground with a skittering spark, shoulders going limp at the knock out.

Dust and concrete crumble from the ceiling and door frame, coating the room in thick fog. Jack’s heart races inside his chest, fists clenching despite the bruises and unstitched wounds. It sends a sharp bite of pain up his wrists, reminding him why he’s here.

What he’s been waiting for.

“If you wanted to get me alone -.” A heavy boot emerges through the dust, bringing with it oil slick and nightmares and a white mask that had driven Jack into kidnaping one of the highest ranking Talon members before he even had all the cards, “A date would have been a nice start.” Jack doesn’t need to see the masked man's face to hear the smirk, “I’m very easy.”

Jack grinds his teeth, “I didn’t lure you here to wine and dine you.”

“No,” Reaper murmurs, “You don’t seem like a wine kinda guy, 76.”

“I’m done with your  _ games _ .” Jack snarls, “You’re either a help or a hindrance. Which is it going to be?”

“Can’t I be both?” Reaper asks, spreading his hands with a wave of inky smoke.

Jack’s shoulders tense as he bares his teeth like a wild dog, “Enough.”

“You’re doing yourself no favors, charging in, pissing all over the city like a wolf, and unraveling everything I’ve done since I arrived.” Reaper snaps, “Your motives are a mystery. A washed up cop from vice trying to what? Relive the glory days?”

Jack takes a threatening step forward, “My motives are none of your goddamn business.”

Reaper scoffs and bends forward to remove the door from Maximilien’s chair. He unties the omnic with a flick of the sharp, silver talons attached to his fingers and lets the body slump into the wet concrete beneath their feet.

“I expected you to kill him.” Reaper hums, “It’s what I would have done.”

“How many more are there?”

“Like him?” Reaper waves to the unconscious heap of metal, “Dozens. Akande doesn’t like leaving stones unturned.” His boot presses along Maximilian’s face and turns it up at the light, revealing the ruined side of his face, “And neither do I.” He taps the toe of his boot against the dented metal, “Finish the job, Jack.”

Jack inhales a sharp breath, tasting dust and blood and oil in the air.

The words are an echo. A shout in the void. A chill up his spine. Icy and burning a trail to the base of his skull.

He pulls the pistol from his thigh holster and puts two bullets in the back of Maximilian’s skull. Smoke curls from the muzzle, the gunshot bounces around inside Jack’s head like a ping pong ball. Reaper gives a passive rumble, smoke coiling around him like a cloak, “Very good.”

Jack’s knuckles tighten around the gun as he levels it with Reaper’s head.

“No stones left unturned.”

He pulls the trigger twice more.

A black haze fogs up his vision and steals his breath in the span of seconds. The chill returns with a force so strong it feels like a thousand frozen knives scraping down his back. A low chuckle blows warm air across the back of his neck, putting his teeth on edge.

A fist, blood hot and sharp as a blade wraps around his throat, “Now, now, Jack. Is that any way to treat a friend?”

Jack’s pulse dances a crazy rhythm inside his chest, “We -.” He swallows and feels razor blades edges break the skin of his throat, “are not friends.”

“Oh, no.” Reaper murmurs, low and hypnotic, “We’re much more than that. This is our first date, after all.”

Jack growls, “Murder and wine get you hot?”

Reaper chuckles again, the sound like brimstone and smoldering ash on a long banked fire, “We already established you’re not a wine guy, Jackie.” His fist tightens and Jack’s vision goes twinkle twinkle little star, pain blooming hot and fierce and swirling in his belly, “You strike me as a bourbon fellow.”

Then, the lights go out.

  
  


\----

  
  


Jack groans and flops an arm across his eyes as sunlight tries to cook them like little sizzlers sausages.

“Shut the fucking curtains, Gabe.”

A laugh, low and pressed against Jack’s belly. Full, saliva slick lips press an open mouthed kiss to the dip of his groin. A shiver of arousal settles hot and sharp, causing Jack’s cock to twitch and fill beneath a solid chest. Wide palms spread his thighs wide, warm and calloused from decades handling a gun.

Jack smiles despite the gouging of his eyeballs, “What’s the occasion?”

Another kiss at the edge of his boxers, “Missed you.” Gabe rumbles, breath warm and heart racing against Jack’s dick.

“We sleep in the same bed.” Jack sighs as Gabe’s teeth tug at the elastic band, nose brushing against the golden fur leading to the hot spot now throbbing between his legs.

“I made coffee _ and _ breakfast and you were still asleep.” Gabe admonishes, fingers slipping through the leg openings and teasing his balls, “All my hard work, wasted so you can snore a little longer.”

Jack snorts out a laugh but it bleeds into a low, tortured moan when his boxers are yanked down to his knees. Gabe lets out a warm puff of air against the tip of Jack’s cock, causing it to jerk and ooze and beg.

“Fuck -.” Jack’s chest heaves, his free hand reaching down to find Gabriel’s head, threading his fingers through dense, curly hair, “You gonna make me wait or -  _ fuuuuuuck  _ -! -” Searing heat wraps around the tip of his cock, jackknifing his hips even as a palm slaps against his abdomen to keep him anchored to the bed.

It’s warm and slick; messy and sloppy. Jack can hear Gabe’s throat working around his cock, feel the twitch of his fingers against his hip. A moan rumbles deep from his chest and Gabriel echoes it in a vibration that Jack feels all the way to the tips of his toes.

He curls them into the bedsheets, the muscle over his eyes bunching as his fist tightens. Pain buzzes at the edge of his consciousness.

It zings down his spine and he cocks up a knee, digging the heel into the bed as Gabriel swallows him to the hilt.

“Fuck - Fuck -  _ Gabriel _ -.” He huffs and drags his fingers across Gabe’s scalp, “Gabe - so good -.”

His hips hitch again and Gabe lets them. His cock sinks in and out of that wet heat, saturating his cock in heaven with every upwards motion. Gabe’s fingers curl around the base, pulling off and swirling his tongue through the slit and slurping at the head like Jack’s an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet.

“Missed this, Jack.” His voice sounds hoarse. Raw. He swallows Jack’s cock again, drawing a shout from deep within Jack’s chest, “Miss the taste of you _.  _ Miss  _ you _ .”

Jack’s heart races and lust fogs his mind, but he knows the voice is wrong. It sounds like mangled metal scraping against bone fragments.

It sounds like -

Jack throws the arm away from his eyes and looks down the expanse of his sweaty skin. His once young body, with its limited amount of scars, to find his throbbing cock wrapped tight in shimmering silver talons.

A bone white mask staring at him from between his legs.

“ _ No _ -.”

“Missed you, Jackie.” The hand strokes up his cock, painful and wonderful and sickening, “Would do anything for a taste of you again -.” Another taloned hand lifts the bottom of the mask, leaving a face in shadow. The trim of a beard, a sharp angled face, full lips Jack remembers with startling clarity.

“No -.” Jack swallows as the mask rises higher and higher, revealing -

**“NO!”**

Jack’s entire body jerks awake in a dark room, chest heaving and sweat soaking through his clothes and into the hard mattress beneath him.

A ceiling fan rolls lazily above the bed, metal strings clicking with every rotation.

A car honks in the distance, tires screeching, someone shouting obscenities.

The room smells like harsh cigar smoke and hard liquor. He doesn’t know where he is. But as he sits up, he sees his jacket hanging over a chair and his rifle laid out on a rickety table in the corner.

His cock is still rock hard and tenting his pants.

Jack growls and shoves a fist down the front, hating the arousal. Hating why it’s there. Why it’s still there despite the painful grip he remembers vividly from the dream.

He drags his hand up and down, a motion on autopilot as he tries to get rid of it as quickly as possible. He wants no pleasure from it. Nothing but a quick, dirty release, so he can move on and forget the dream ever happened.

Jack spreads his knees and tips his head back against the headboard and the movement burns.

He hisses and releases his cock, pressing the hand to his throat. It comes away wet with blood; a wound reopened.

Memories of the warehouse, of Maximilian, of Reaper, come swirling back with sudden clarity.

Jack swallows, thick and uncertain.

Reaper’s last words whisper to him from every dark corner of the room.

Jack struggles to get his pants down and they get caught on his ankles as he wraps the bloody hand around his cock. He grunts and growls and punishes it for being hard. For  _ wanting  _ anyone other than the man he married. For oozing from the tip and leaking all over his fist at the memory of Reaper’s warm breath at the back of his neck.

For making his toes curl into the shitty, stained sheets under his feet as he wraps his other hand around the wound on his neck and presses down. The pain is potent and vibrant. It sears under his skin and curls around the base of his cock and he screams as he smears blood down his neck, over the rise of his pecs and down across his belly. Mixing with the cum spurting in bursts from his cock, staining the white hair an ugly shade of pink.

Jack lets out a bark of laughter.

Then, a sob.

He throws the arm across his eyes, fingers trembling and palm wet with blood and semen.

_ Now what _ , his brain hisses.

Jack’s eyes burn as salty heat leaks down the sides of his face. His body trembles with the cold chill from the fan.

“I miss you, too.” Jack croaks to an empty room, “I would do anything to have you back. Please come back.”

The room doesn’t answer. Another horn honks. Someone in a room next to him laughs along with a sitcom buzzing on a television.

Jack squeezes his arm over his eyes.

_ Fin _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Twitter @gabrielsthighz!
> 
> Give how expansive Gem's AU is, there is a high chance I'll be adding to this fic in the future, so stay tuned!
> 
> Thank you all for your continued support and comments and kudos. I miss writing for Jack and Gabriel and hope to continue doing so in the future!


End file.
